Articles Posted inCommunications Management Unit

The San Francisco Gate reports that late last week, the Honorable Jane Magnus-Stinson (S.D.-Ind.) ordered John Walker Lindh, an inmate at the FCI Terre Haute CMU, “must be allowed to pray daily in a group with other Muslim inmates.” According to the paper, the Court found that “[b]arring John Walker Lindh and his fellow Muslims from engaging in daily group ritual prayer violates a 1993 law [a.k.a., the Religious Freedom Restoration Act] that bans the government from curtailing religious speech without showing a compelling interest.”

Ken Falk, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, which represented Lindh, noted Friday that witnesses testified that prisoners were allowed for many years to pray daily outside their cells, “and it never caused any problem.”

Group prayers had been allowed once a week and on high holy days such as Ramadan or Christmas in the prison unit where Lindh was housed, the Communications Management Unit in Terre Haute, Ind. But at other times, inmates had to pray alone in their cells.

TODD A. BUSSERT

A member of FROST BUSSERT LLC, my federal criminal defense practice includes trial, appellate and post-conviction (2255/2241) representation, as well as federal sentencing- and BOP-related representation. I regularly assist clients with BOP placement (initial designation and transfer, including to halfway houses and home confinment) and programming issues (for example, RDAP, accomodation of medical or mental health needs, etc.), as well as with addressing rights/policy violations and defending against alleged institutional rules infractions.